Artist Bio

Doris Kapner (b. 1971) is a multidisciplinary artist working in ceramics, printmaking, and textiles. The daughter of German immigrants and raised in New York, she earned a B.F.A. in Sculpture from Purchase College, SUNY, in 1994.

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Kapner’s professional background includes work in galleries, TIG welding, law enforcement, homemaking, visual merchandising, yoga instruction, and art education. Working in roles traditionally coded as masculine and feminine has become a form of lived research that informs her work around gender, labor, domesticity, and cultural inheritance.

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Kapner juxtaposes familiar objects, imagery, and language so their established meanings begin to shift and conflict. Drawing on femininity, domestic craft, folklore, and ritual, she often works with objects already carrying cultural associations, including garments, handkerchiefs, domestic objects, religious texts, and fairy tales. Beauty and familiarity function as strategies for drawing viewers toward more uncomfortable questions about women’s bodies, labor, autonomy, and social roles.

Kapner’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including exhibitions in Vienna, Austria, and Warsaw, Poland. She received First Prize in Printmaking in the 2023 Women United Art Prize. Her work has been featured in Studio Visit Book, Vol. 1 by Arts to Hearts Project, Women United Art Magazine, and The Jealous Curator Member Spotlight.

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Kapner is Senior Creative Director at McColl Center, where she leads artist development programs, residencies, exhibitions, and initiatives supporting artists at multiple stages of their careers. She lives and works in Charlotte, North Carolina.